Mr Pot MP?

There’s been so much in my head over the past few months I’ve wanted to blog about. Facebook and twitter have taken care of much of the personal stuff, that I’ve ground to a halt.

Do I blog philosophically about the gap between expectations of school leavers and cultural expectations of knowledge of science, maths and technology in adults? Do I talk about attitudes to environmental issues? Do I blog about the worrying trend for rational, evidence based argument to be treated with suspicion?

And then… Nigel Farage announces he’s stepping down as UKIP leader to symbolically stand against John Bercow. I do hope that more than a politically motivated minority are boggling at this idea.

Transparently Farage is trying to take advantage of the general feeling of rage against MPs to opportunistically go up against the speaker, labelling Bercow as representative of the mainstream that every one is fed up with. Even accepting that the expelled Tom Wise is not representative of the party group, the idea that UKIP are somehow more honourable than the three major parties and the two nationalist ones is a bit of a joke to my mind.

Farage has been a bit vague as to what precisely it is that Bercow is doing wrong as speaker. On the Today programme expenses weren’t mentioned even. This sleight of hand can’t surely take many people in, blind anti-MP rage or not.